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30 Days of Kink: Day 1

So apparently I’m the sort of “blogger” (I apply that term loosely to myself at this point) who requires writing prompts. At least for now. So I dug around in the dusty corners of the Internet and dusted off the five year old 30 Days of Kink writing prompts. The original was posted by Queer Kink as far as I can tell, but I found the complete list on one page over at Insatiable Desire. I know I did the 10 day blogging challenge a while ago – so some of these posts may sound familiar – a lot of this has been covered in part or whole in other writings of mine. But because people change over time, and because I need the kick in the pants to get writing regularly again, I’m giving this one a go.

Don’t expect me to take the title literally – I won’t be providing 30 consecutive days of blog posts. But my current goal is to post once per week at absolute minimum.

Without further ado, then:

Day 1: Dom, sub, switch? What parts of BDSM interest you? Give us an interesting in-depth definition of what that means to you. Basically define your kinky self for us.

Hah – they start off easy! 😉

Dominant. 100%.

My preschool (age 4) report card noted that I needed to “stop bossing the boys around so much”.

Both of my marriages (one utterly vanilla, the other quite kinky but not D/s) ultimately failed in part because of power struggles.

I’ve had 100% vanilla folks remark on my “naturally dominant” personality. (Not in a bad way – not domineering, just an observation.)

So yeah,

I’m dominant.

I’m also kinky.

I’m also a top.

Nope, those three things are not synonymous nor should any of them be assumed just because someone identifies as any of the other three. This confuses a lot of folks I meet – and not just the folks new to these things.

What is central to my identity in terms of relationship dynamics is that I identify as a dominant. I have learned that I do best when there is a mutually agreed upon power imbalance in my romantic relationships – with me being the person who is in charge and makes the decisions. I do best with a partner who is wired in such a way that they crave making others happy and are most comfortable and fulfilled in a submissive role.

Dominance and submission refer to relationship dynamics in my world view.

Kinks can be completely separate from relationship dynamics or they can be used to reinforce the power imbalance in a D/s relationship. Kinks are what turn you on (and they’re the subject of Day 2, so you’ll just have wait for more about my kinks).

Top and bottom are terms that refer to kinky play/activities. The top is the person providing the sensation/experience and the bottom is the person receiving it.

Where it gets more complicated is when a dominant likes to be the person receiving a kinky sensation/experience. For example, I know plenty of dominants who enjoy being tied up in rope or enjoy being flogged. Here’s a secret: No one act is inherently dominant or submissive. What matters is the established dynamic, the intention, who is calling the shots. If a dominant says to their submissive, “I want you to tie me in the XYZ tie”, the dominant is still the one in charge. The submissive is doing what their dominant asked of them. Some folks refer to this as “service topping” – in other words, providing the service of topping for a particular scene or experience.

However, as I noted above, I identify as a kinky, dominant, top. I’ve tried bottoming – hated every minute of it. Tried it more than once, with numerous activities – just nope. Makes my skin crawl and even with someone I trusted and loved, I HATED it. I also – very briefly – tried out the role of submissive in a relationship. Again – it made my skin crawl. It wasn’t about trust – I trusted my partner, it was something more visceral – it just felt inherently WRONG for me. I don’t do well being told what to do by anyone – which yes, makes working for a living a challenge. I think that’s partly why I’ve stayed in the education realm for so long – in my classroom, I made the decisions – sure, I had a curriculum to follow, and school procedures to reinforce, but the vast majority of decisions about how I taught and how my classroom was run, were mine and mine alone. Control freak? Maybe…

The other misconception about a D/s relationship I encounter all too frequently is those I meet who expect me to instantly take on the role of their dominant. I don’t operate that way. Primarily because I consider consent to be mandatory and non-negotiable. And here’s secret number two – consent goes both ways. If I haven’t consented to enter into a power-imbalanced relationship with you, and you start calling me Mistress or asking me to control your chastity, that’s a consent violation. That’s not OK. For a D/s relationship to work, both partners have to be on-board. Both need to consent to it – and you can’t consent to something you haven’t discussed. All too often, people have varied personal definitions of what a D/s relationship looks like. These things need to be discussed – often at length – before moving forward. I also prefer to develop a sound foundation for the relationship before layering on the power dynamic. In other words, I need to be sure I LIKE a person, can have conversations with them, share mutual interests and similar value systems. I need to be sure we understand each other’s communication style(s). I need to be sure we’ve established trust and compatibility on multiple levels. As we do that, I slowly layer on power-imbalances and protocols to reinforce them – but always with a lot of discussion and negotiation along the way. The kink? That’s the icing on the cake – it holds it all together and makes it so much sweeter.

Oh right…I also identify as Poly. To me that means having multiple partners in my life who fill different needs. Not all of my partners are my submissive – in fact, with all of my current partners, while we incorporate aspects of D/s in our interactions, none of them is my submissive. I’m still searching for a primary partner to fill that role. I’m 100% open with all current and potential partners about all of this – everyone knows from day one what the deal is. Everyone is important to me in their own way and I make damned sure they know it. Lots and lots of communication and complete honesty (on everyone’s part) is what makes it all work. They day any of it becomes a source of stress for me would be the day I’d need to step back and evaluate things. But right now – it’s all good.

I’m still a work in progress (as are we all), so this post is just a snapshot of where I’m at right now.

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One thought on “30 Days of Kink: Day 1”

I read your first sentence and all I could think was, “Yes!” I’ve discovered that I’m the sort who needs ideas for a topic. Once I start I’m good for quite a few words but the topic always seems to stump me.